Elisha fed the crowd. Jesus fed the crowd. It's a good narrative. The crowds were fed. There's no need to fear.

The more you talk and think about it,
The further astray you
Wander from the truth.
Stop talking and thinking,
And there is nothing you
Will not be able to know.
To return to the root
Is to find the meaning,
But to pursue appearances
Is to miss the source.
At the moment of inner enlightenment
There is a going beyond
Appearance and emptiness.
- Seng Ts'an (d. 606)

Going beyond is surrendering fear.

25. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.
(--from Letter of James)

We have heard, in silence, at night, going into dooryard with dog and cat, the light from one of a billion stars through tree branches.

maggie and milly and molly and may
by E. E. Cummings

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

A necessary loss.

A surprising find.

We are fed up with metaphor.

It is time to fast.

An emptying God.

War continues to rage.

It's not enough to complain about the weather.

Stop it! (War, that is.)

Translating Sutras

We go on unwinding the woof
From the web of their meaning.
Words of the Sutras
Day by day leap forth.
Head-on we've chased the miracle
Of Dharma:
Here are no mere scholars
- Hui Yung (332- 414)

Prison today was three good conversations. About galaxies and gravity. About three chairs in a pod that foment gossip and negativity. About God and laziness.

Perhaps sitting meditation is akin to falling into a wormhole taking you everyplace at once.

Evening conversation begins Practicing the Power of Now. Refresher. "No-mind is consciousness without thought." That's what Tolle writes.

Good words! No mere!

No-name suffices.

As the moon slips from
Behind a cloud and shines,
So the master comes out
From behind ignorance and shines.
Swans rise and fly toward the sun.
What magic!
So do the pure conquer
The armies of illusion
And rise to fly.
- Buddha in the Dhammapada

No wonder we do not experience God.

With wonder, experience.

Unfortunately, we use names as crowbars prying apart the once whole.

This is called naming violence.

...Rwandan musician Jean Paul Samputo says: "Forgiveness is the most powerful unpopular weapon against violence that exists." (--in Christian Science Monitor, July 26, 2009, p.7)

Wander nameless with no-name truth, with no-name God.

The nameless whole is, in itself, sufficient.

What would you want to hear if you were dying?

"Thank you for your life!"

Little Pines
Poking up from the ground
Barely above my knees,
Already there's holiness
In their coiled roots.
Though harsh frost has
Whitened the hundred grasses,
Deep in the courtyard,
One grove of green!
In the late night
Long-legged spiders stir;
Crickets are calling
From the empty stairs.
A thousand years from now
Who will stroll among these trees,
Fashioning poems on their
Ancient dragon shapes?
- Ch'I chi (864-937)

The president wants a better approach to health care in the United States. We should have a fair and accessible system for all people.

Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek? She is asked why she is sorrowing so that her desire might be strengthened; for when she mentions whom she is seeking, her love is kindled all the more ardently.
Jesus says to her: Mary. Jesus is not recognised when he calls her “woman”; so he calls her by name, as though he were saying: Recognise me as I recognise you; for I do not know you as I know others; I know you as yourself.
(--From a homily on the Gospels by Gregory the Great, pope; Office of Readings, feast of Mary Magdalene)

To be known as oneself is a good place to start.

To be recognized.

Enough for life.

Good for death.

Perfect for what is beyond both.

Cutting limbs of trees. Dragging branches up to pit. Others prepare boat for launching.

When water is pure and sparkling clear,
Your see straight to the bottom
When your mind holds no concern,
No circumstance can turn you
And once your mind doesn't stray,
A kalpa has no changes.
From such awareness nothing hides.

- Han shan

When there's nothing to say, I try my best to keep silent.

For hermitage update and events, visit:

http://sites.google.com/site/meetingbrookhermitage/

What is the better way to live?

As it is, it happens this 'what is' is the better way to live.

No doubt about it. Just don't-know 'what is' and continue on allowing it to live through you. Every instant giving birth to 'what is' taking place before us.

Do not pursue the past.
Do not lose yourself in the future.
The past no longer is.
The future has not yet come.
Looking deeply at life as it is
In the very here and now,
The practitioner dwells
In stability and freedom.
We must be diligent today.
To wait until tomorrow is too late.
Death comes unexpectedly.
How can we bargain with it?
The sage calls a person who knows
How to dwell in mindfulness
Night and day
"One who knows the better way to live."
- Bhaddekaratta Sutra

There were 14-15 at Sunday hospitality today. Grass mowed. Earlier at Jack and Kathy's a potluck of paragraphs from 15 around their table centered on The Course in Miracles. It was Lorin's and Jack's birthday. At hermitage later, Rick, also his birthday, stopped in.

Everything is being born even as we write and read these words. The wind courses through the land, through our words, through the night. As we sat in meditation in the cabin an enormous porcupine came up to the screen porch and caught our attention. Rokpa first, then the humans. It ambled on as we resettled back to our cushions.

Thomas Berry, in The Dream of the Earth, has said that most of us suffer from a kind of autism when it comes to communicating with anything other than our own kind. The Holy Wind has been stilled in our lives , and we live in a cultural atmosphere that does not confirm the mutuality of creation. Even when we recognize our kinship and intimacy with other forms of existence, we remain mute before them. Their language has been forgotten. We are enclosed in a psychocultural cocoon; the outer world no longer flows into our being. Those voices remain unheard, and we are unable to speak in response. The winds of communication with creation are dying. Yet Earth and language meet and metabolize in the zones of dream and visions, in story, poetry, song, and prayer, and in direct communication with untamed beings. These zones comprise the boundary lands where cultural constraints and social habits are overridden, where tribal folk, shamans, and children, the mad and inspired, are caught in the holy wind of creation.
(-- Joan Halifax, p.84, in her book The Fruitful Darkness, 1993)

Here is what I have to say. If I were to think about it, 'here' is the only thing I have to say.

The better way to live is transparently.

Walter Cronkite's signature sign-off, "And that's the way it is!" reminds us to face the way things are.

The way things are is what is taking place before us.

The holy wind of creation.

Sounding itself throughout.

Requesting our attention.